Transition information for former Office Live Small Business customers

Transition information for former Office Live Small Business customers

Office Live Small Business is now closed and was shut down on 30 April 2012. Most customers have already moved their website, email, and other data to Office 365 or another provider. Below are some common questions about the closure:

Q: I just found out about the OLSB closure – when and where was this announced?

A: The decision to discontinue OLSB and to focus on Office 365 for professionals and small businesses was first announced in October 2010. Since then, we have given updates in blog posts in the Office Live Small Business community and sent regular email messages to customers (using the email addresses they gave us). There were also on-screen notifications every time that OLSB administrators signed in to their OLSB accounts.

You can still retrieve some of the data you had, like email on Hotmail and documents on SkyDrive, as these were not affected by the OLSB closure.

Q: How can I recover the website content, email, and documents I kept on OLSB?

A: Any website data or documents that were stored within OLSB are no longer recoverable. However, some of your data isn’t affected by the closure, and much of the rest can be recovered.

Email:

If your email address ends in @live.com, @hotmail.com, or @msn.com, then nothing has been deleted. Go to www.windowslive.com to sign in.

If your email address ends with a custom domain (like fourthcoffee.com or contoso.com), then depending on your domain registrar your mail may either keep working fine or may stop being delivered to you. To prevent any problems, we strongly recommend that you update the records for your domain.

Website:

Your website was taken off the web when OLSB was decommissioned and is no longer recoverable.

Documents and photos:

If you kept your documents and photos in Windows Live SkyDrive, they are not deleted. You can sign in to SkyDrive to use them.

Domains:

If you used a custom domain with OLSB, it has been released and is available for you to move to Office 365 or another provider.

If you got your domain through Office Live Small business then your domain registrar is Melbourne IT. You can keep your domain with Melbourne IT or move it to another domain registrar. If you need help from Melbourne IT you can open a support request at https://www.melbourneit.com.au/contacts/support.php or call them.

0-808-189-1358 UK Toll Free

1-888-863-2686 US Toll Free

1-300-654-677 Australia

+61386521421 International

Q: Is website data (or documents stored within OLSB) recoverable?

A: Any data in your OLSB account that is not stored on SkyDrive or Hotmail is no longer recoverable. Recovery of this data was available between 30 April 2012 and 1 December 2012.

Q: Do I need to cancel my OLSB account?

A: No, all accounts have already been cancelled as part of the OLSB closure.

Q: Have my documents on SkyDrive by deleted? Will they be?

A: No, they won’t be deleted. You can still use SkyDrive by signing in with your Windows Live ID.

Q: Can I keep using email in Hotmail, but not move my website?

A: If your email address ends in @live.com, @hotmail.com, or @msn.com, then nothing has been deleted. Go to www.windowslive.com to sign in.

If your email address ends with a custom domain (like fourthcoffee.com or contoso.com), then you need to update the domain records in order to make sure that you can access your email.

Q: Why is my email no longer getting to my Office Live mailbox?

A: You may need to adjust your DNS settings. Here is more informaiton:

Symptom: No new email is being delivered to my custom domain mail account with my Office Live account or Hotmail.com or outlook.com. Email sent to my domain is not received by the owner of the email account and/or email sent to my account is getting a refusal notification from the email sender’s mail account.

Issue: Office Live was shut down in May 2012. For many users their email on their custom domain Office Live account continued to operate normally, because, after the shutdown of Office Live, Microsoft continued to operate the Office Live Domain Name Servers (DNS). Microsoft is continuing to shut down Office Live and we began shutting down our DNS in January 2013. This shutdown will impact the flow of mail to Office Live users that continued to use their custom emails.

Solution: To correct the problem and continue using Hotmail or Outlook.com as their email system, administrators will be required to complete 2 steps:

1. The administrator will need to sign in with their domain registrar and change their domain name servers (DNS) to point to a domain name server of their choice. Most registrars operate DNS servers that their customers can use. If you have questions about how to do this, please work with your domain registrar.

2. Once the administrator has changed their DNS servers, they are ready to enable the domain for use with Hotmail.com or outlook.com. On their domain registrar site, they need to set their MX record to: 1 pamx1.hotmail.com. (including the final ‘.’).

A: If you purchased a custom domain through Office Live Small Business, that domain is registered with Melbourne IT. That means that you can contact them for help with your domain, and can go to their website to access or change your domain records.

Q: Can I use Melbourne IT if my domain name ends with .jp or .fr?

A: Melbourne IT does not manage these domains directly. Instead, your .jp or .fr domain will be managed by the existing registrar on record for your domain name in Japan or France. If you want help with this, you can open a support request with Melbourne IT at https://www.melbourneit.com.au/contacts/support.php or call them.

0-808-189-1358 UK Toll Free

1-888-863-2686 US Toll Free

1-300-654-677 Australia

+61386521421 International

Q: How do I recover my domain key from Melbourne IT?

A: Melbourne IT will send you an email message with the domain key. Check your junk mail folder to make sure it wasn’t sent there by accident. If you have checked for this message and haven’t received it, please contact Melbourne IT by opening a support request at https://www.melbourneit.com.au/contacts/support.php or by calling them.